The Fruitful Christian Life
John 15:1-6
Hudson Taylor was the founder of the China Inland Mission, and under God was responsible in the mid-19th century for leading hundreds of missionaries into China’s interior for the first time. In 1869, when he was 37 years old, he entered a new phase of life. He began live more deeply the truth of John 15. He was given a deeper, and more constant, more satisfying experience of abiding in Christ.
His son Fredrick Howard Taylor later wrote in 1932,
Here was a man … bearing tremendous burdens, yet absolutely calm and untroubled. Oh, the pile of letters! any one of which might contain news of death, of lack of funds, of riots or serious trouble. Yet all were opened, read and answered with the same tranquility — Christ, his reason for peace, his power for calm. Dwelling in Christ, he drew upon His very being and resources. . . . And this he did by an attitude of faith as simple as it was continuous. Yet he was delightfully free and natural. I can find no words to describe it save the Scriptural expression “in God.” He was in God all the time and God in him. It was that true “abiding” of John fifteen.
Like all of scripture, John 15 is a life-transforming passage. In John 13 and 14 Jesus and His disciples have been in an upper room in Jerusalem where they have just celebrated the Passover meal. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet giving them a practical example of the loving service we are to give to one another. He has revealed that one of them would betray Him and has indicated to John that the betrayer would be Judas Iscariot. Judas has ignored Jesus’ many warnings to him, and having his heart filled with Satan, he has left to do his evil deed of betrayal.
Jesus’ statements that He was about to go away left them troubled, so He has comforted them with assurance that though He was going away, He was going to His Father’s house and would be preparing a place for them there, and He would return for them and bring them to that place. In the time between those events, Jesus would greater things through His disciples through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.
The time is now short before Jesus will be arrested that night and then tried and crucified the next day. At the conclusion of Jesus’ final Passover meal with His disciples, knowing that the time had come for Him to go to the cross He said (John 14:31), “But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.” As they leave the upper room and walk through the darkness from Jerusalem toward the Mount of Olives, our Lord continues to speak to them, and what He says to them is recorded in John 15 and 16.
Given the words that follow, it’s easy to imagine that as our Lord and His disciples strode along on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, they might have come upon a grapevine which Jesus uses as an object lesson to His disciples. It’s really a word-picture, a metaphor of our life in Christ.
Listen to what He says, I’m going to read John 15:1-8,
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” (John 15:1-8).
A key word in John 15 is “abide.” Jesus uses that word seven times in just these beginning eight verses. It means to “remain” or to “dwell” or to “continue.” With respect to a grapevine, it would mean that the branch “remains connected” to the vine in such a way as to draw its essential life from that vine.
That is what Jesus is telling us about our relationship with Himself in this passage. In order to enjoy a fruitful, joyful, victorious Christian life, we absolutely must abide in Him—remain connected to Him in such a way as to draw our life and strength directly from Him.
It should be obvious from John 15:8 what the point of this analogy is. The point about the vine and branches is fruit-bearing to the glory of God which proves we are true disciples of Jesus Christ. Jesus teaches us as His followers that we absolutely cannot be a true disciple of His without being vitally connected to Christ Himself. Take away a real, living, personally dependent relationship with Jesus Himself, and you no longer have the Christian faith as He taught it. He taught that His followers could no more bear fruit in the Christian life without Him than the branch could produce grapes without being vitally connected to the grapevine. To put it another way, we can only be fruitful in the Christian life to the degree that we ‘abide in’ Jesus Himself.
The first thing that Jesus teaches here is that …
1. Jesus is the true vine.
Jesus told His disciples (John 15:1), “I am the true vine …” Jesus wanted His disciples to see His vital role in their lives. He was their true source of life and strength. In the original language, He spoke in an emphatic way; as if to say, “I—even I—I am the vine, the true one.”
This is the seventh and final “I am” metaphor of Jesus in John’s Gospel (John 6:35, “I am the Brea of Life”; 8:12, “I am the Light of the World”; 10:7, “I am the door for the sheep”; 10:11, “I am the Good Shepherd”; 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life”; 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life”). These claims not only show aspects of Jesus’ nature and mission, but also are claims to deity. He is God, the “I am.”
So Jesus says, “I am the true vine …” Why would Jesus use this metaphor? These words would have had a particular ‘Jewish’ familiarity to the disciples. In the Old Testament, Israel is often referred to as God’s vine that He planted. It became a national symbol that was on some of their coins. There was a golden vine over the entrance to the temple. In Isaiah 5:1-7, the prophet paints a picture of the Lord planting a vineyard and expecting to find good grapes at the harvest, but it only produced worthless grapes. As a result, the Lord threatened to destroy the vineyard. Other Old Testament prophets use the same analogy (Jer. 2:21; 6:8-9; Ezek. 17:6-10; 19:10-14; Hos. 10:1-2). In each case, Israel was God’s vine that He planted with the intention that it would bear fruit. But, they were disobedient and unfruitful. Psalm 80 uses a similar analogy. God removed a vine from Egypt, planted it, and for a while it was prospering. But now the hedges that protected the vine are broken down and wild animals were ravaging the vineyard. So the psalmist cries out for God to turn again and take care of this vine that He planted so that it will again be fruitful. That revival to fruitfulness would come through the branch that God makes strong for Himself (Psalm 80:15). Psalm 80:17 prophesies who that branch will be, “Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.”
Isaiah prophesies of the Messiah in Isaiah 11,
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:1-2).
So, by identifying Himself as “the true vine”, Jesus fulfills what Israel could never do because of their disobedience. Jesus declares that He alone is the only ‘true’ or ‘genuine’ vine—the only true source of life and salvation promised to come through the Messiah. While there may be many things in in this world from which we may be tempted to draw such things as life, health, growth, strength, fruitfulness, joy, and happiness, only Jesus truly gives salvation and all its benefits. Jesus once told the Pharisees,
“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life,” (John 5:39-40).
Those Pharisees sought life through ‘abiding in Judaism’—very much like some people today seek life by ‘abiding in Christianity’. But those outward religious systems aren’t ‘the true vine’. They aren’t the true source of life and strength. Only Jesus gives eternal life. As 1 John 5:11-12 says,
“And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12).
Now; Jesus not only teaches us that He is the true vine, but second that …
2. His Father is the vinedresser.
Jesus says (John 15:1), “… and My Father is the vinedresser.” He owns the vineyard and He takes care of the vines. As the Son of God, Jesus never acts independently of His Father; but always in complete obedience to and in perfect cooperation with the Father.
The vinedresser is the one who tenderly cares for the grapevine. He sees to it that the branches on the vine are healthy and strong and able to produce good fruit. And the fact that the heavenly Father is the vinedresser is something that should be a great encouragement to us. It means that just as the Father cares for ‘the true vine’, He also cares for us as the branches attached to that vine; and that He is very much committed to the fruit that we as the branches are to bear. Because we are attached to the vine, we are very much the personal concern of the Father.
Think of that, dear brothers and sisters! The fact that Jesus identifies His Father as the vinedresser means that we are as much under His constant love and care as Jesus Himself is!
Jesus goes on further in John 15:2 to teach that …
3. Fruitfulness is the goal.
Bearing fruit is the point of having a vine. It is the function of the branches. Jesus states it both negatively and positively in John 15:2: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” The Lord also mentions bearing fruit in John 15:4 (2x), 5, 8, & 16 (2x).
What is the fruit that Jesus expects His branches to bear?
Fruit is what the life of Christ produces in and through the believer who abides in Him. That includes obedience to Christ’s commandments (John 15:10), “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” This especially means the command to love one another (John 15:12). “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Obeying Christ’s commands extends to all godly behavior (Matt. 7:20; Rom. 6:21), such as repentance (Matt. 3:8) and conduct that is pleasing to the Lord (Eph. 5:9-10). It includes the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” It also refers to seeing people come to Christ through your witness (John 4:36) and seeing them grow in Christ through your influence (Rom. 1:13). To sum it up, fruit is Christ-like character, Christ-like conduct, and Christ-like converts.
Obviously, it takes time for fruit to grow. So don’t despair if you don’t see all of these qualities fully developed in your life yet. But if you are a Christian, you should see growth or progress in these things. You should be in the habit of obeying Christ. You should see the fruit of the Spirit increasing in your conduct. You should be hungering and thirsting after righteousness with increasing intensity. You should be looking for opportunities to tell others about the Savior. If you’re not seeing these fruits growing in your life, you need to figure out why not. Growth in Christlike fruit should be the normal experience of every Christian.
What about the branches that do not bear fruit?
Jesus teaches (John 15:2), “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away …” The meaning of this verse hinges on understanding two phrases in the verse, “Every branch in Me” and “He takes away.”
Let’s take the second one first. The word, “takes away” can mean either “to bear away, remove” or it can mean “to raise or lift up.” If the word means to “lift up” as the marginal note in the NKJV indicates, then the meaning would be that the vinedresser lifts the unfruitful low-hanging branch up from the dust and dirt so that it can get sunlight and air to become fruitful. Understood this way, these branches are still “in” the vine, believers in Christ, and the Father raises them up to ensure their fruitfulness.
But in light of John 15:6, I don’t think that is what Jesus meant, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”
In the analogy, there are two types of branches: Some do not bear fruit and some bear fruit. Those that do not bear fruit are not fulfilling their purpose. They’re dead wood. They get cut off and thrown into the fire. They represent those who profess to believe in Jesus, but their lives give no evidence of saving faith. They don’t bear fruit.
The prime example of this unfruitful branch is Judas Iscariot, who professed to believe, followed Jesus for three years, and was sent by Jesus like the other apostles to preach in His name, but whose real god was greed. John 15:3 helps us to understand John 15:2 this way, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” That takes us back to John 13:10, where after the foot washing, Jesus said, “… and you are clean, but not all of you.” John explains that He was referring to Judas as the unclean one (John 13:11). Judas was the unfruitful branch that was taken away and whose final end was to be cast into the fires of hell. That is what Jesus means when He says (John 15:2), “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away …”
Therefore when Jesus says those unfruitful branches are “in Me” He cannot mean that they are true believers, true disciples. Like Judas, they are false disciples who have never truly been cleansed of their sin. Jesus used another similar metaphor in Matthew 13 to illustrate the same point. There He told a parable about a field into which both good seed and tares were sown saying (Matt. 13:38-40), “The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil … the tares are gathered and burned in the fire…”
Jesus is not saying that a genuine believer, who has been saved and attached to Jesus, can ever backslide fatally, or can fall away from the faith in such a way as to be cut off from the vine and lose their salvation. That can never happen. Jesus says in John 10 that the Father has given His sheep to Him; “and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (John 10:29). If someone has been attached to Jesus in a saving way, they will never be detached from Him and become lost to Him again.
This reminds us of the seriousness with which the Father takes His role as vinedresser. Unfruitful, unattached branches hinder the growth of good, fruit-bearing branches. Only branches that abide in a vital, intimate connection with the vine are the ones that bear fruit.
So, fruitfulness is the goal of our being attached to Jesus. And notice how He then teaches us that …
4. Jesus has already cleansed us for fruitfulness.
Jesus tells His disciples in verse 3, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Jesus cleans you with His word and the vinedresser prunes you. He, of course, didn’t mean that His disciples were—right then and there—‘perfect’ in every way. We know that they weren’t and neither are we. Rather, Jesus meant that the Father has already cleaned these ‘branches’ and pruned them for the purpose of bearing fruit. They are ready to begin producing fruit immediately. And so also are we. We don’t have to work our way up to being branches who are worthy of bearing fruit. We who are abiding in Him may begin right now.
And notice the means of our cleansing. It’s the word that Jesus Himself spoke. Jesus is saying that the word He has spoken to them has already “cleaned” them in the sense of salvation. Their sins are forgiven. It’s like the bath in John 13:10, which cleansed them all over. But the Father further “cleans” (or prunes) them repeatedly, so that they will become more fruitful just like the repeated foot washing that is necessary to walk in fellowship with the Lord. The pruning is the essential discipline that all true children of God must experience if they are to grow.
Later that evening when Jesus was praying for them in John 17, He asked the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17). It was that word which Jesus had received from the Father and had declared to His disciples—and that they then declared to us.
You might think of the word of God as the great trimming knife in our lives; just as the writer of Hebrews said:
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
You and I may not always enjoy the way the word of God sometimes cuts us so deeply; but it’s necessary that it do so in order for us to be able to produce the fruit the Father wishes to produce in us. That’s why, in order to truly abide in Jesus, we need to read the Bible regularly.
But we must always remember the key to it all; that …
5. Abiding in Jesus is essential to fruitfulness.
Jesus then commanded His disciples, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” (v. 4a).
Imagine what would happen if you were driving past a grapevine, and thought to yourself how nice it would be to always have fresh grapes. Suppose you stop and just sliced off a branch, threw it in the back seat, and took it home. (You’d better never try that in real life, though. The vineyard owner might come after you with a rake if you did! But just for the sake of argument, let’s suppose you did.) Suppose you took that branch home and placed it in some water and waited for your own constant supply of fresh grapes. Of course, nothing would happen. The branch can only produce grapes so long as it is attached to the vine in such a way as to draw its life from it.
But sadly, that’s how many professing Christians try to live the Christian life. Outwardly, they seem to be doing all the right things. They have been baptized in a church. They know the Bible fairly well and read it regularly. They go to church. They tithe. They work hard at living a righteous life. They may even be giving their time in service to others. And yet, their experience with Christianity doesn’t seem to be what they know it ought to be. They don’t have joy. Their prayers aren’t answered. They are lacking peace in their hearts. They don’t have power in their testimony toward others. They’re not victorious over the sins of the flesh. They feel defeated and discouraged. Their lives—when they get right down to it—don’t seem all that much different than the lives of unbelievers. The ‘Christian faith’ doesn’t seem to work for them.
We can never reproduce the character and behavior of Christ on our own—somehow independently of Jesus Himself. As ‘branches’, we must maintain a constant, continual, vital, personal communion with Jesus Christ on an ongoing basis for His fruit to be produced in us. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine,” Jesus said, “neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (v. 4b).
And it’s not just a matter of our abiding in Jesus; but also of Him abiding in us! Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (v. 5). The branch that is abiding on the vine, in a sense, also has the vine abiding in it. The vine’s sap and juice and life-force flows from itself into the branch. That’s why the branch is able to produce the fruit of the vine—because it is abiding in the vine, and because the vine is abiding in it. We’re to allow His life to flow through us and produce His fruit in us. As Paul was able to testify;
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20).
Abiding in Christ produced in Hudson Taylor a fruitful Christian life of great action, risk, discipline and self-denial — all of it sustained by great peace and joy. He wrote, “Let us, then — not seek, not wait, not pursue — but now accept by faith the Saviour’s word — ‘Ye are the branches.’” Taylor believed the inexpressible glory of our union with Christ. He wrote, “Work is the outcome of effort; fruit, of life. A bad man may do good work, but a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” He knew the secret of the fruitful Christian life is abiding in Christ.
At the time of Hudson Taylor’s death, the China Inland Mission was an international body with 825 missionaries living in all eighteen provinces of China with more than 300 mission stations, more than 500 local Chinese helpers, and 25,000 Christian converts. And his fruit continues. Most estimate that today there are over 150 million Christians in China.
Ask yourself today, “Am I bearing fruit for His kingdom? Am I joyfully submitting to His loving pruning in my life? Am I daily abiding in Christ, making Him and His words at home in my heart?” Bear the fruit of Christlikeness. That’s the purpose for which He saved you.
